But scientist now know that it was not a result of anything spiritual. During the early 1320s, the bacterium Yersinia pestis (Zahler) that causes bubonic plague erupted in the Gobi Desert along trade routes. This was made possible because of the previous Ice Age and the uncovering the prehistoric bacteria (Nox). The plague was transferred and spread by fleas, they were not effected by the disease. Fleas first infected the rats, which lived off garbage and sewage. The rats then spread the infection to the humans. Rats in those times were abundant in the cities. This was due to the poor sanitary and living conditions, so no one thought or suspected the cause could be them. In the winter time the plague seemed to always disappear, but that was only because in the winter the fleas were dormant and they could not survive the harsh cold. Each spring, the plague brutally attacked again, killing new victims. The plague traveled through merchants along the Silk Road and Black Sea, spreading to both China and possibly India (Zahler). In 1347 the plague reached parts of Sicily, Marseilles, Alexandria, and Constantinople through trade, starting the period of the Black Death in Europe (Zhaler) however, some records also have shown that the plague was spread from Russia to Genoa to Italy, France, and Germany in 1348 through warfare from the Tartars (Cartwright and Biddiss). The Black Death then continued to spread across Europe until 1352 when the period of the Black Death came to an end (Zahler). The reason the plague was able to spread so rapidly and cover a wide range was due to the fact that this was during the time of exploration and expansion. This was a time when humans were curious about new land and a lot of trade would occur in neighboring and new found countries.
The Black Death was not just a single visitation of the plague, but numerous recurring epidemics spread across a seven year-long period (Cartwright and Biddiss).
